• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

HOW AMERICA GOT MEAN - in a culture devoid of moral education, generations are growing up in a morally inarticulate, self-referential world.

So yeah, I'm not buying it. Yes, some things are worse than in the past -- but others are better. The reality is that:
• Human beings take improvements for granted very quickly (hedonic treadmill)
• They pay more attention to, and put more weight on, negatives than positives (negativity bias)
• They see the past as better than the present (nostalgia / "rosy retrospection" bias)


This article seems like just another example of those cognitive errors.

I will be reporting this post for saying everything I wanted to say in response, and stealing my ideas from me before I had them.
 
This is really an indepth article discussing sociology, technology, demography, and the economy

I read the entire article (it is pretty long) and recommend it to you all no matter what your political ideology is.

HOW AMERICA GOT MEAN​

In a culture devoid of moral education, generations are growing up in a morally inarticulate, self-referential world.

By David Brooks
Illustrations by Ricardo Tomás

AUGUST 14, 2023, 6 AM ET

Over the past eight years or so, I’ve been obsessed with two questions. The first is: Why have Americans become so sad? The rising rates of depression have been well publicized, as have the rising deaths of despair from drugs, alcohol, and suicide. But other statistics are similarly troubling. The percentage of people who say they don’t have close friends has increased fourfold since 1990. The share of Americans ages 25 to 54 who weren’t married or living with a romantic partner went up to 38 percent in 2019, from 29 percent in 1990. A record-high 25 percent of 40-year-old Americans have never married. More than half of all Americans say that no one knows them well. The percentage of high-school students who report “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” shot up from 26 percent in 2009 to 44 percent in 2021.

My second, related question is: Why have Americans become so mean? I was recently talking with a restaurant owner who said that he has to eject a customer from his restaurant for rude or cruel behavior once a week—something that never used to happen. A head nurse at a hospital told me that many on her staff are leaving the profession because patients have become so abusive. At the far extreme of meanness, hate crimes rose in 2020 to their highest level in 12 years. Murder rates have been surging, at least until recently. Same with gun sales. Social trust is plummeting. In 2000, two-thirds of American households gave to charity; in 2018, fewer than half did. The words that define our age reek of menace: conspiracy, polarization, mass shootings, trauma, safe spaces.

Much more at link
They been squeezing us for decades and the lie that it's the only way is unraveling.
 
This is really an indepth article discussing sociology, technology, demography, and the economy

I read the entire article (it is pretty long) and recommend it to you all no matter what your political ideology is.

HOW AMERICA GOT MEAN​

In a culture devoid of moral education, generations are growing up in a morally inarticulate, self-referential world.

By David Brooks
Illustrations by Ricardo Tomás

AUGUST 14, 2023, 6 AM ET

Over the past eight years or so, I’ve been obsessed with two questions. The first is: Why have Americans become so sad? The rising rates of depression have been well publicized, as have the rising deaths of despair from drugs, alcohol, and suicide. But other statistics are similarly troubling. The percentage of people who say they don’t have close friends has increased fourfold since 1990. The share of Americans ages 25 to 54 who weren’t married or living with a romantic partner went up to 38 percent in 2019, from 29 percent in 1990. A record-high 25 percent of 40-year-old Americans have never married. More than half of all Americans say that no one knows them well. The percentage of high-school students who report “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” shot up from 26 percent in 2009 to 44 percent in 2021.

My second, related question is: Why have Americans become so mean? I was recently talking with a restaurant owner who said that he has to eject a customer from his restaurant for rude or cruel behavior once a week—something that never used to happen. A head nurse at a hospital told me that many on her staff are leaving the profession because patients have become so abusive. At the far extreme of meanness, hate crimes rose in 2020 to their highest level in 12 years. Murder rates have been surging, at least until recently. Same with gun sales. Social trust is plummeting. In 2000, two-thirds of American households gave to charity; in 2018, fewer than half did. The words that define our age reek of menace: conspiracy, polarization, mass shootings, trauma, safe spaces.

Much more at link
With respect to some of these metrics that are more relevant and telling, ~40 years of sustained median real wage stagnation (or decline depending on your measure, or category of spending; real wages have unambiguously declined substantially RE: such important things as healthcare, higher education, rent and housing) as our politicos are increasingly captured by monied interests and do little about this is a hell of a drug.

See Trump getting elected; twice.
 
If David Brooks wrote it, you can probably find the same shit written over and over again by the likes of Bill Kristol and Tom Friedman, or anyone at the Bulwark. Longing for the days when conservatives were erudite and when the right wing would screw over the working class politely.
 
Pick your reason:

a. 24/7 news cycle.
b. Social Media replacing real socializing.
c. Glorification of violence in entertainment.
d. Erosion of respect for order and authority.
e. All of the above.

Violence has pretty much always glorified violence. Now our government is glorifying it.

You think respect for order and authority brings happiness?
 
"HOW AMERICA GOT MEAN "
How Progressive, left leaning have American and Americans become?
Seems there might be a correlation there.
 
Brooks bemoans the loss of moral education and as such, I suggest this decline in happiness and empathy can be traced to education becoming first, a tool for gaining a job, and not for becoming a fully realized person. This is seen in the decline in the study of humanities, which contain a moral dimension, and an increase in the sciences and business, which do not.

If college is too expensive for most people they are deprived of an opportunity for greater happiness. That many no longer feel college is important is a reflection of a society that has given up on the pursuit of happiness.
 
"HOW AMERICA GOT MEAN "
How Progressive, left leaning have American and Americans become?
Seems there might be a correlation there.

Policing women's bodies, policing trans' whereabouts, policing the movement of minorities and the disabled in employment and education, policing students' speech and shackling harmless undocumented immigrants and banning books from libraries is the path to happiness?
 
Policing women's bodies, policing trans' whereabouts, policing the movement of minorities and the disabled in employment and education, policing students' speech and shackling harmless undocumented immigrants and banning books from libraries is the path to happiness?
Your representations of these issues are largely falsely and mischaracterized, each issue having far more context surrounding them than your one liner, and each issue having threads here in these forums which far more fully in context and far more expansive.

Academic studies have shown that liberals are more miserable compared to others.

Seems that liberals have taken it on themselves to try and make everyone else equally miserable.
 
Your representations of these issues are largely falsely and mischaracterized, each issue having far more context surrounding them than your one liner, and each issue having threads here in these forums which far more fully in context and far more expansive.

Academic studies have shown that liberals are more miserable compared to others.

Seems that liberals have taken it on themselves to try and make everyone else equally miserable.

Of course they have more context around them, but the solution is always the same: more repression.

Liberals don't like repression.
 
The right has long held a world view I characterized as “I got mine. Screw you.”
Under Trump, MAGA has embraced are more direct version. “Screw you.”
 
Are you familiar with Robert Putnam's book "Bowling Alone". It's not in the same vein, but it shows how we are becoming more isolated and that has a demonstrably negative effect on communities.
I agree with this idea, and it's become very apparent with the rise of social media. The isolation that brings is going to have a detrimental effect on how we interact socially, which we already see in the younger generation who's grown up with it. The other aspect of this is our past forms of mass communication still maintained the moral fabric our society espoused, but the social media and internet world is organized chaos that is absent of that. People are exposed to all sorts of terrible, desensitizing content featuring violence and people behaving badly. It's hard not to see how the isolation people feel combined with what I described, not affecting our society negatively.
 
Of course they have more context around them, but the solution is always the same: more repression.

Liberals don't like repression.
LOL.
Its more like 'liberals don't like it when people disagree with them, don't toe their ideological lines' and 'liberals don't like it when they don't get their way'.

This demanding that everyone else toe their ideological lines is repression, authoritarian, totalitarian.
 
The guy divorced his wife of 20-some years to marry his much younger assistant.

Well, to be fair, you wants an old fat wrinkled women on their arm ?

The guy is a jerk but not for this reason. He is not insightful.
 
I agree with this idea, and it's become very apparent with the rise of social media. The isolation that brings is going to have a detrimental effect on how we interact socially, which we already see in the younger generation who's grown up with it. The other aspect of this is our past forms of mass communication still maintained the moral fabric our society espoused, but the social media and internet world is organized chaos that is absent of that. People are exposed to all sorts of terrible, desensitizing content featuring violence and people behaving badly. It's hard not to see how the isolation people feel combined with what I described, not affecting our society negatively.

We agree. Lots to discuss, but one of the solutions is simply to start reaching out to those around you to connect. We have had street parties for many years and sometimes we introduce people who have lived a house apart for years. I can't think of one instance where people didn't find value in such activities.

Don't talk politics though.......at least not at first. :)
 
I see comments about a paywall. Some of us never noticed any paywall, because we have scripts off or run NoScript on Firefox to block specific scripts. I must emphasize that when a site uploads the entire text of an article to your web browser, unsolicited, no one should feel bad about using a web browser to do what web browsers do, namely display the text it's received.

The article is well-written and interesting, I think, but I didn't read much of it. The argument is that there used to be moral education and we've given up on that. My father used to say this to me several decades ago. They gave an interesting example (among several), so I went through three pages to find it: The Brownies' Book by W.E.B. Du Bois from 1920. Full text of this is available for now from thomas.loc.gov, though I wonder if soon it will be deleted as "DEI propaganda"? The original cost ($1.50 a year) is said to be equivalent to $24 a year in modern terms. It is an authentic historical reference for interesting social context.
 
Pick your reason:

a. 24/7 news cycle.
b. Social Media replacing real socializing.
c. Glorification of violence in entertainment.
d. Erosion of respect for order and authority.
e. All of the above.


America typically has been mean going back 140 years ago.

Sure there are periods of time it is covered up, but it was still mean.

America has never really treated the poor or ethnic minorities very well.
It is easy to cover up being mean if never see them, gated communities, segregation, private schools etc.

When America mixes it gets mean, see battles of desegregation. See arguments against Medicaid. Why if the poor are poor they don't deserve medical care, let them die. That is rather mean

Compare that to Canada. Canada and the US share a lot of cultural traits, both being primarily derived from British culture. The US stayed with Victorian England ie scrooge. While Canada moved and not easily towards a European social welfare state.

It is not to say parts of Canada is not mean, it certainly can be and is. But not to the degree the US is. Canada does not treat the poor ( not homeless) as worthless scum who are lazy and deserving of nothing
 
When America mixes it gets mean, see battles of desegregation. See arguments against Medicaid. Why if the poor are poor they don't deserve medical care, let them die. That is rather mean

American HAS Medicaid, so your point about it doesn't make much sense.
 
America typically has been mean going back 140 years ago.

Sure there are periods of time it is covered up, but it was still mean.

America has never really treated the poor or ethnic minorities very well.
It is easy to cover up being mean if never see them, gated communities, segregation, private schools etc

It's exacerbated by the American myth of rugged individualism, and the paranoid fear of socialism.
 
Congressional Trumplicans want to gut Medicaid by hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for tax cuts. That's rather mean.

They're looking to cut it by about 7%, mainly by requiring able-bodied people without dependents to work in order to qualify. That would leave Medicaid spending higher that what it was at the end of 8 years of Obama being president, after adjusting for inflation and population growth.

Boo-hoo.
 
American HAS Medicaid, so your point about it doesn't make much sense.


What was the point of Obama care?
The desire to cut Americans off Medicaid on the big beautiful bill?

My point stands fully and is reinforced by the BBB.

Cutting people off because they aren't working certainly is not kind, no one doesn't work because they get medical coverage,
 
What was the point of Obama care?
The desire to cut Americans off Medicaid on the big beautiful bill?

My point stands fully and is reinforced by the BBB.

Cutting people off because they aren't working certainly is not kind, no one doesn't work because they get medical coverage,

Obamacare isn't Medicaid.

Giving handouts to able-bodied people who refuse to work is not kind to the people who are working and paying for it.
 
They're looking to cut it by about 7%, mainly by requiring able-bodied people without dependents to work in order to qualify. That would leave Medicaid spending higher that what it was at the end of 8 years of Obama being president, after adjusting for inflation and population growth.

Boo-hoo.
You illustrate the point of the thread perfectly.
 
Back
Top Bottom